My theoretical reactions to these theoretical options (I don't believe any of this will actually happen):

Get ~20% back -> I would not choose this myself from these options but it's still infinitely better than nothing and I am sure some people would prefer this one (and even be happy about it).

obtain an equity stake of that amount -> Sounds better. But why not for the full amount? I would be a happy man if I got a share for the full amount of BTC I had there. But I don't like the 80% cut if I am willing to participate in a long term and high risk investment like this (the actual net return could prove to be significantly less than 20% and you can definitely wait years for that uncertain amount...).

set aside 50% of transaction fees -> 80-90% would sound a lot better. Why can't these people wait until their exchange is 100% debt-free before they start pulling out some profit?

What's wrong with this guide?
https://www.darkcointalk.org/threads/darkcoin-update-masternode-requirements-masternode-payments.225/

I am currently running one from home on my mining rig.

And I think I am close to beat my personal time record of continuous mining of a single altcoin. (Guess the coin, LOL.)

It's probably a bot.
Who controls that (or those) bot(s). Who knows?

Some things can go smoother with these cards if you attach a display. (I visited a friend of mine, randomly pulled out a dead HDTV motherboard from the trash can and used it's HDMI connectors: 3 monitor EDIDs for free).

Because aticonfig is a Linux utility which doesn't have it's Windows equivalent.
Other than that, the suggested solution wasn't helpful on my Linux based rig anyway (it never had a screensaver anyway).

However, lowering the VRAM clock seemed to help but one 290X still slows down even at it's factory default 1250Mhz VRAM clock while it can mine Scrypt (N=[10,11]) coins @ 1475Mhz for days just fine.

Yeah. That's exatly the pint of importing a private key from a paper wallet (or similar offline storage) to a wallet.dat (or similar online wallet)
Your wallet.dat has no other important informations (it does store other things but nothing crucial) but a number of private keys (encrypted or not and with or without a corresponding public key -> the public key can be calculated from the private key any time, so no need to calculate and store it before you need it).

If we take Bitcoin for an example, you can do this:
- generate new wallet.dat from scratch (and thus generate a new private key)
- dump the (or actually one of the many from the keypool) private key(s) from that wallet.dat
- print this private key on a paper
- send coins to the public key (again, this can be calculated from the private key)
- either burn the paper wallet or securely erase the wallet.dat of your drive(s) (or encrypt it with an unknown, unrecorded random password)
- use the remaining copy(s) of your private key(s) to spend your coins

You can have as many copies of either (wallet.dat and paper wallet) as you wish, but you only need one.

Paper wallets and wallet.dat files are only a container for the private key (which is the single important thing) and optionally the public key (for the ease of the human user who can't calculate it on his head if he needs the public key only).


Well, I could theoretically test this ... if I were very rich:
- send coins to a fresh DRK address
- dump the private key and print it (or secure it by other means, doesn't really matter, I could theoretically also memorize it if I actually could)
- start a masternode which uses this address for masternode qualification
- shut down this masternode and try to spend the coins by using my private key in a different only wallet (import it to a new wallet.dat)


I guess it would work. I shud work. It must work. But... Evan said something what confused me if it really works and he haven't respond since.

I think it's already there. You just need to enable the "coin control (experts only)" option for the QT GUI or alternatively use "raw transactions" (works for both GUI and rpc daemon).

---

By the way... Is there a particular reason why my earlier questions about masternode operations got practically zero responses while the topic moved on?

Everything is falling now, BTC/$, most ALT/BTC (excluding the occasional pumps but those are also less frequent these days).
But this can't take longer than a year and it's probably closer to it's end than it's beginning.

eduffield

I guess you missed this question:
-> Is the original private key alone still enough to spend the coins after someone uses the corresponding public key for masternode qualification but shuts that masternode down?

If the answer is yes, then I can't see what you meant here:


If the original private key alone is enough to spend the coins later then I can't see the problem with that private key existing on a paper wallet only.

In that post, I meant you destroy the wallet.dat passphrase, not the wallet.dat itself, nor the public or even the encrypted (but technically never decryptable) private key inside it.
I wish to destroy the wallet.dat passphrase, so nobody will ever use that wallet.dat to spend the coins (only a person with physical access to the off-site/hidden paper wallet will be able to).

---

This is a serious question because I already risked to loose my 1000 DRK if the original private key is not enough to spend the coins.
(I didn't immediately backed up the wallet.dat after becoming a masternode because I thought the original wallet.dat is enough.)


-> And what if I loose my IP address?
(It's only semi-static. It haven't changed since months but it's theoretically still dynamic.)


I think we should put together a FAQ of questions like these ASAP because I get the feeling that I took too much risk by participating in this BETA.

They probably updated their OpenSSL source package and recompiled the Darkcoin wallet/daemon.

It does and it doesn't.
Do you use TLS encryption for sending RPC commands to the wallet daemon?
If not (if you don't know then you don't), then you can spare this time you would worrying about coin wallets and use it to worry about everything else what actually used the problematic function (!!a lot of things!!).

[/quote]

What do you mean?
1: darkcoind can't become a masternode without unlocking the wallet with the original passphrase to sign a message?
2: the original private key on the paper wallet won't unlock all of it's coins after a darkcoind have used the encrypted wallet.dat to become a masternode and got shutdown in the mean time?

I don't think it's case 1 because as much as I can tell, I successfully started a masternode already without ever unlocking my wallet with the wallet passphrase. However, case 2 sounds way too risky.

Same here. This latest beta finally works for me.

My 290(X)s don't like this /un/optimization.

Ok, I will give it another try and report back.


Perfect.
I wasn't sure if masternodes need certain amount of coins so they can actively move them around different addresses or that 1000 DRK is more like a "stake" which lays dormant the whole time.

In this case, one could also encrypt the wallet.dat with a random key and immediately destroy it forever (so even you don't know it) with a single key pair inside and print out the private key as a paper wallet which can be kept somewhere safe (e.g. not in your house and/or next to the server hardware).
When you decide to shut the node down and spend your coins, you simply delete your wallet.dat and import the private key from the paper wallet to a freshly generated wallet.dat

Where will node reward coins be sent?
If they go to the same address, won't the increased amount of coins disqualify that node from becoming a masternode?
Is it checked if your address had exactly 1000 DRK transaction once and it still has that 1000 DRK but ignores any other incoming and/or outgoing transactions?


But this also raises a serious question:
What stops people from faking the ownership of a 1000 DRK address if the masternode daemon doesn't need the private key for that public key?

For example, I already posted my 1000 DRK address. Somebody could simply claim it and become a masternode while I am struggling to finally connect my node.
He won't be able to spend my coins, but he will be registered as a masternode while I can't become one.

Another question about DarkSend:

- Do masternodes pay TXfee while they move coins as part of the DarkSend transactions?

Or course, the planned node-reward will cover that if they do, but there is no reward yet, so I would effectively pay for being a node.

Well, so...
Instead of writing "the guide" as a self-confident expert would, I will write down what I did, what I think about that and ask others to comment on what they think about it.
This way I hope we can put something together which is even better than a guide from a single self-claimed expert (e.g. put the knowledge of the whole community together).


I already had a working Gentoo linux running on my main mining rig.
The distro doesn't really matter but I think the Gentoo handbooks are really good (there is also a dedicated security handbook). They go relatively deep into the bushes (compared to an Ubuntu guide) while you can still brake everything down to simple "1 bit noob" user tasks by following them line by line (and might learn some things about the whole system on the road).
I configured the kernel to be as thin as it can be and only installed packages I know I need (or come as minimal requirements of some other packages).
Everything comes from the default stable branch, except the kernel (fresh ck-sources from ckolivas instead of the slightly older default "stable" gentoo-sources) and the proprietary closed-source fglrx (AMD) driver.

-> If you have never done it before, it will take a lot of time to install and configure Gentoo. But I guess most people will settle down with a simple off-the-shelf Ubuntu anyway.
 

I also already had a fresh OpenWRT distro on my router.
I regularly compile it for myself from the git sources. I also try to keep this as thin as possible (I only compile and install the required packages).
I configured the OpenWRT firewall to drop every incoming connections and don't forward any ports I don't know that I need. This firewall also has a simple SYN-flood protection and can filter invalid packets. (But, of course, it won't really protect me from DDoS attacks.)
Also, the router doesn't respond to ssh connections from the WAN interface, it only communicates on the LAN and it has a relatively strong password (12+ characters).

-> Not every routers support open-source firmwares, even less supports OpenWRT (and I don't even say OpenWRT is the best open-source firmware).


I think Evan's guide is thorough enough about what you need to do with the DarkCoin daemon. But it's easy to make it more friendly with screenshots.



And this is how I secured my wallet (at least for now):
I freshly created an Ubuntu Live installer from an ISO on a USB flash drive and also placed the darkcoind binary on it,
unplugged the machine from the network and and booted it from the flash drive.
started darkcoind, asked it to give a new address for user 0 as Evan's guide instructs you.
encrypted the wallet with a really strong password.
stopped the wallet daemon and made an md5sum of the wallet.dat before I copied it to the flash drive.
shut this machine down.


I copied the wallet.dat to the masternode server (as well as a third and fourth location as backups) and checked the md5sum again.
I started darkcoind as Evan's masternode guide instructs.




The problem is that darkcoind won't save more than a few hundreds of keys into the wallet.dat, no matter how big keypool I ask for (it does generate all the 10000 or more keys into the thin air but saves only ~500 initially and only ~200 new after it flushes those original 500 unencrypted keys when you later encrypt the file) and I figure DarkSend will eat the keys from the keypool like a crazy addict, and thus you will either need to periodically input your password on the online server (risking your coins if somebody hacked it, even more if you do it automatically and thus you keep the password on the online machine) or copy the wallet.dat to a flash drive, refill it's keypool on an offline computer and copy it back (while your masternode is offline).

I think this could be easily solved by "fixing" darkcoind to save as many keys to the wallet.dat as you ask it to generate (and also keep this originally requested number after a keypool flush during the wallet.dat encryption).



I am sure a real security export would scream into my face over this setup.
But again, I never said you can't hack my server, or kill it with a DDoS attack. I just said you won't steal my coins (at least not without physical interaction).
Unless... -> No, I won't give you ideas.



By the way, I only intend to use my own home server and internet connection for testing purposes.
When (and if) DarkSend becomes popular and start to consume some real bandwidth I plan to move it to a VPN server (or even a dedicated server, I will see which one fits the real-world requirements then).

That's why I said I am not "the guy".

My own node is secure in a way that you can't steal my coins without physically breaking into my house and find the wallet password (hint: it's not in the fridge). And I run a custom OpenWRT firmware on my router which acts as a hardware firewall and a weak DDoS countermeasure. And I followed the Gentoo security handbook during the OS setup. But that's it. I never said you can't hack my server.

I asked for the specifics because I wasn't sure if you want a simple masternode guide (how to install and set up a wallet daemon as a masternode on an already working system)  or an all-around guide starting from scratch to a mid/high level security server.

I already set up my masternode, so it wouldn't be hard to play it over and document the steps with screenshots.
But I would never call myself an IT, let alone an IT security expert.

I trust in my own security measures as much that I risk my own coins, but no way that I would risk other's, so I am not your guy.
And I don't think my own habits are optimal for most of the people who need a guide.

I would still do this for 50 DRK though, if I felt I have the required skill set. (It also benefits the whole community, the DRK reward is just a little extra.) But I do not.

I would gladly do something like this for 50 DRK but you should specify what exactly you ask for because I think Evan's guide is enough as is.
Well, at least I think because my masternode is technically still offline but it seems to be Evan's problem with his initial masternode (reminder: it's beta phase...).